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Summer 2016

It has been another amazing year. December’s OFSTED inspection is an obvious highlight of the year. The report that followed the inspection underlined what good progress we are making, highlighting students’ pride in the school, the good relationships that staff have with students and the ethos of achieve-ment and hard work that is at the heart of what we do. I’m also very pleased with the introduction of our House system. Seeing students galvanised to work together across year groups and em-bracing the spirit of friendly competition has given me such enormous pleasure, that even having to present the inaugural House Cup to Fortius hasn’t diminished it. I remain a proud member of Laurus and can assure we’ll be mak-ing a fighting comeback next year. Competitiveness is just one of the traits we aim to encourage at Dormers Wells of course; we seek to provide to each student an education that nurtures the variety of skills and attributes they will require. An important part of that experience is what I call ’Cultural Capital’, expo-sure to some of the wealth of what life has to offer outside school. I am enor-mously proud to be able to say that we have invested heavily in our students’ cultural capital this year;

at the most recent count we had facilitated more than 2,000 trips for students in 2015/16. Events in school have given me equal cause for pleasure, and the end-of-year Awards Evening and the Year 11 Prom are cases in point. The former, on Thursday 14th July, saw us cele-brating the achievements of students across the breadth of subjects and activities we offer and provided reminders of what can be achieved by the application of hard work and talent. The latter glowed with the spirit of friendship and community that has flourished amongst our Year 11s. I look forward to wel-coming many of them back to our Sixth Form. They will be joined in the school community by the new intake of Year 7s. It was a pleasure to welcome those students to our Induction event and we look forward to developing the obvious talent that cohort will bring with it.

Arrangements for the re-commencement of school in September have been com-

municated to parents and carers in a letter. Year 7, 10, 11 and 12 return on Friday 2nd September; Year 8, 9 and 13 students return on Monday 5th. I look

forward to welcoming everyone, re-freshed and ready to embark on the next

chapter of their learning careers. Róisín Walsh Headteacher

From the Head...

A Mock Interviews Day held at Dormers Wells on Thursday 30th June saw Year 10 students practising their skills with local business people who had kindly given their time. The day has won strong praise for the year group, with the CVs they had prepared and their very high standards of personal appearance both winning acclaim. The participants can also be proud of their performances during the interviews, with approximately 30 individuals highlighted as having given starring performances Meanwhile, 24 Year 10s have visited the University of Warwick for the launch of the ‘Brilliant Club’, a programme which will in-volve them working with PhD students from

the world’s best universities. The students are attending tutorials and will be writing a university-style essay on their work. Additionally, five of the year group have undertaken a medical work experience placement. They experienced life in a busy

London hospital, met research scientists and took part in a range of activities de-signed to build their confidence and equip them to pursue careers in the field, includ-ing careers advice sessions and activities helping them to understand University life. Also undertaking medical work experience are seven of Dormers Wells’ Year 12 stu-dents. The students – Karishma Jani, Sawmyaa Thiruchelvam, Muhammad Umer, Sehnampreet Virdi, Kessiya Varghese, Yas-mine Maalin and Wajeehullah Mahmood –have secured places at institutions including the Royal Surrey Hospital, King’s College London, the Blizard Institute and BARTS Cancer Institute.

Looking good for the future

P2 Students make waves

P2 Athletes’ medal haul

P2 Kidzania conquered

P2 Adrian is handball champ

P2 Fortius win House Cup

P3 Dickens Museum visit

P3 Animal instincts

P3 Exhibiting creativity

P3 Watch the boys play

P3 Student Librarians praised

P4 Artwork of the Half-Term

P4 Holocaust survivor visit

P4 Learning celebrated

P4 Aspirational visits

P4 Basketball champion

Inside this issue...

Students make waves Exploring KidZania

Year 10 student Adrian Dusznik represented Ealing in the handball event at the London Youth Games in mid-May. The team finished as champions and Adrian (back row, third from right) and his team mates are pictured below with their gold medals.

Dormers Wells’ Year 7 and 8 athletes enjoyed a successful day at the Borough athletics meeting at Perivale on 21st June. Gold medal winners included Shams Mandozi (300 metres), Harveen Sandhu (Long Jump), Mohamed Sharif Ali (1500 metres), Abdi Mohammed (High Jump and 300 metres) and Hanad Ahmed (800 metres). The 4 x 100 metres relay team finished in fourth place.

This half-term saw a group of Year 8 and 9 students enjoy a re-wards trip to the JB Ski watersports centre. The trip was designed to push participants outside their comfort zones and promote Dor-mers Wells’ positive growth mindset. Students had a fantastic time enjoying the water, while at the same time developing determina-tion and resilience.

The end of June saw a group of 30 Year 7 students visiting KidZa-nia, the role-playing activity centre at Westfield Shopping Centre at Shepherd’s Bush. Students worked in groups on activities including film production, ice cream and smoothie making, learning to fly an aeroplane, jew-ellery making and putting on a theatre production. The students earned money for some activities, while having to pay for others, using the Kidzos currency of their KidZania bank accounts. They also earned plaudits from Kidzania’s Director of Education, who remarked upon how well they conducted themselves.

Fortius win House Cup Fortius have won the inaugural Dor-mers Wells House Cup with an im-pressive 7,553 points tally. They were presented with the trophy in their Assembly on 1st July. Students from the winning house were re-warded with a trip to Wembley later in the month, visiting a Futures Fair and enjoying a rock concert in Wembley Arena. Fortius finished almost 800 points ahead of nearest rivals Magnus, who accumulated 6,768 points. Citius came third with 6,752 points.

Medal Haul for athletes

Capital handball playing

Dickens Museum visit End-of-year exhibition

Dormers Wells welcomed students from three other local second-ary schools—Cardinal Wiseman, Greenford and Villiers—for a per-formance of the popular French play Les Garcons. Staged by On-atti productions, the comedy was performed by two native French speaking actors and is pitched at the language competence of students in key stages 3 and 4, aiming to demonstrate to students how much they have picked up during their studies.

The Year Seven Additional Liter-acy group had a fantastic time visiting London Zoo in June, see-ing for themselves some of the animals native to the continents they have been studying in their Geography component and the adaptations they have made to their ecosystems. They enjoyed talks by staff, including one on the family of tigers, a penguin display and created artworks depicting the creatures they had

seen. Despite the hot weather, the 27 pupils were keen to see as many animals as they could. In addition to regular favourites such as giraffes and zebras, the group named the snakes, frogs and crocodiles of the Amphibian House as their favourites. The students showed an impres-sive level of interest and en-gagement, discussing both the animals and the role of zoos. Abdul Tara (7PR) captured the conflicted feelings of the visi-tors, expressing admiration for the many different types of ani-mals and birds they saw, includ-ing the majestic fish, delightful birds and grinning monkeys, but arguing “it is a pity, however, that these animals are not free to go wherever they like”.

Watching the boys play

Student Librarians praised School Librarian Ms Vidgen has been paying tribute to the hard work of the 2015/16 Student Librarians. “They have been the heart and soul of our Library this year”, she said. “They have helped during break and lunch times when the Library is at its busiest, assisting peers with printing and editing and recommend-ed books. Many were also actively involved in our World Book Day celebrations.”

Year 9 students have been gaining an insight into the life of Charles Dickens and his world with a trip to the Charles Dickens Museum in Bloomsbury. Student Sara Nasir (9ML) said afterwards: “We saw the place in which Charles Dickens wrote many of his famous books. We found out how amazing he was and we got an insight into the 19th Century and a day in Charles Dickens’ life”. The visit builds on students’ study of 19th Century fiction they have been undertaking in English classes.

Students’ animal instincts

Illustration by Si Rondon.

Dormers Wells end-of-year exhibition took place in the school’s Long Hall Gal-lery after school on Friday 8th July. The event saw guests, including parents and carers, governors, staff and stu-dents, enjoying a selection of work cre-ated by art and design, textiles, design and technology, photography and media students during the year. Exhibits on display ranged from large items of furniture, including desks, down to smaller works, including paintings.

Artwork of the Half Term Encouraging aspiration

Holocaust testimonial

On Wednesday 29th June, Year 8 and 9 History students had the privilege of hearing the testimony of Hannah Lewis, who was born in Poland and lived through the horrific events that later became known as the Holocaust. Hannah spoke very bravely about her ex-periences and answered questions from students that she later said were some of the most perceptive she had been asked. Many stu-dents commented that the morning not only helped deepen their understanding of the Holocaust, but also prompted them to consid-er wider world events and their role within their communities.

The Summer Artwork of the Half Term is Formal Elements by Year 7 student Navjot Sagoo (7DA). Created using paint and oil pastels, the work takes Zentangles as its theme and uses complementary colours to create a beautiful work. Navjot used the work to inspire Year 6 students on their induction visits to Dormers Wells.

Year 7 students had an early taste of higher education, thanks to a visit to Kingston University in mid-June (above). The students enjoyed a tour of the campus, learning more about being an un-dergraduate, and took part in a craft activity building models of their own fantasy universities in space and underwater. Meanwhile, Year 8 students and parents, have enjoyed a visit to the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies for a one-day University experience. They were given a campus tour, met students, and learnt some basic Japanese language. The day proved very popular, as Ibrahim Deen explains: “The trip to SOAS was very inspiring because while I was there I learnt how different people have got to where they are now. One thing that stood out was the Library because it was very big.” We are also pleased to report a further new development for the 2016/17 year, with the school poised to partner with Debate Ma-te to give Year 9 and 10 students the opportunity to participate in an after-school programme that enhances influencing skills, en-courages aspiration and develops teamworking and leadership skills. Look out for further news next year. That will build on the work already being done to develop de-bating skills at Dormers Wells. The school was proud to host the borough finals of the London Debate Challenge, attended by Greenford, Northolt and Twyford High Schools, in early June.

Dormers Wells’ teaching staff attended a celebration of learning event this half-term. The event was the culmination of a year-long programme that had seen teachers attending workshops and putting what they had learnt into practice in the classroom. This final event saw them sharing successful out-comes from techniques including flipped learning, questioning, assess-ment and mastery teaching.

Learning celebration

Basketball champion Eddy

Year 7 student Eddy Colley’s (far right) basketball skills have pro-pelled him to the status of a national champion as part of a team representing the South East. Following trials in Brighton that began whittling 80 players down to a final squad of 10, Eddy and his teammates went through the hardest training he has ever attended in the run-up to the week-end tournament in Sheffield. The side played seven fixtures over two days. They went unbeaten in their four group games on the Saturday, winning their pool fairly easily. The first game on the Sunday, the quarter final, was also comfortable. However, the team were losing at half-time in both the semi-final and final and had to make spirited comebacks in both to become champions.